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I noticed a classified ad in a central Kansas weekly that began with “free farm puppies.” Then the donors followed with what has to qualify as pure truth in advertising: “Will be large dogs.”

Then it said they were 10 weeks old and the mother is a Lab and the father is a Great Pyrenees/German Shepherd.

Not far from that ad was another declaring a Habitat for Humanity Blitz Build coming Aug. 25-28.

I read those two to my wife and suggested that Habitat should build a giant doghouse for those oversized pups and then somebody ought to have a fund drive to buy dog food that the local co-op could deliver to them each day. Plus, a lagoon down-slope from the dog house would probably be nice.

n While we’re on true stories in search of a little humor to lighten these worrisome times, an old friend dropped by to chat at the farmers market where I spend most Saturday mornings. It came up somehow that he was so groggy the other morning that he didn’t know whether that was his wife or their Golden Lab in the bed next to him. Then something barked in his ear, so he asked if she had let the dog out yet. Come to think of it, he did show up alone.

n The other night in parts of Kansas there fell a trace of rain coming in on an 80-mile-per-hour wind, and eight inches of tree trunks and limbs and roofing shingles. Not quite the soaker all the area soybean growers are still waiting for.

n On the Interstate between Topeka and Junction City is one of the several “24-7” travel centers in the state, with company headquarters at Salina. This one is nicely remodeled and expanded and it is busy, seeing as how it is the only place on that stretch of bumper-to-bumper traffic between those two cities where one can buy fuel, buy a sandwich, take a break and still be on the big highway.

You’d think we were crossing the desert here, as scarce as the amenities are. The old Kansas I-70 motto until recently was, “Keep on movin’, stranger, as soon as you pay for your gas and grub.” That attitude has mellowed.

Thus it was that the truck stop, as we locals call it, put in new hand dryers in their new rest rooms, the electric kind that put out a ton of heat and even more noise but still leave your hands feeling clammy. I mean, you’re looking around for paper to make earplugs with first and then to dry your hands, but that’s beside the point here. In the usually busy new rest room with the noise of the jet engine dryer is often a familiar something in the air as old as mankind.

Friends being the sort to bestow negative attention have taken to naming the new restroom for each, as in “The John Smith Room, full of hot air and BS.”